Job Search and Candidate Experience in COVID-19 and Beyond

In this episode I speak with Diana Meisenhelter who is the former head of talent at FedEx office. And we’re going to discuss job searching during the COVID 19 pandemic. This is a great episode for both recruiters and job seekers to understand how to communicate properly through the hiring process during a situation like this and always and how to avoid being the ghost in the machine. And I think this is a, some really valuable stuff. So enjoy.

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Here is the full transcript:

Craig Fisher (00:44):

I’m Craig Fisher and this is inside talent where we take you into the minds behind the scenes and show you some of the coolest tools and best practices of some of the coolest people in the talent industry.

Craig Fisher (00:57):

This is Craig Fisher. I’m with Diana Meisenhelter and Anna is going to talk with us today about job searching and candidate experience during the endemic COVID 19 episode. And I think it’s an interesting story because we’ve had lots of stories of layoffs and furloughs and more in this environment. And but there are a lot of people that were actually not working when we got into this. And Diana is in that unique position maybe not so unique to some of you out there. I work with a lot of HR leaders and Dallas HR here and other groups to help people in transition get back to work. And so she and I have some fun and interesting conversations and she wrote this great article lessons learned from the other side, part one. And you can see it on her LinkedIn profile. Diana, why don’t you tell us about you and what’s been going on,

Diana Meisenhelter (02:05):

Right. So I have 25 plus years, then talent acquisition and many industries and leadership started as a recruiter all the way up to vice president of talent acquisition. And most recently I was managing director of talent acquisition for FedEx office based here in Plano. And I left FedEx office recently and have been on a career search. And it’s interesting because that’s, you’ll see on the, the article I wrote that I have experienced some really bad things that we’re doing in our profession that has not been very good from a candidate experience. And I’m sure we’re going to talk more about that. And I think I’d like to spend some time about that. And this was prior even to COVID and now that we have the virus pandemic happening, there’s and I just didn’t know when, when Craig and I are talking about a topic, I thought this was one that many of my peers and people looking for work.

Diana Meisenhelter (03:18):

And just in general the top of the candidate experience and the candidate side and also for being a talent acquisition professional and my, my experiences before COVID 19. And then during, and I also do as Craig does volunteer in our community for job seeking council I volunteered a lot of opportunities to help people as a subject matter expert on how to find a job. So we’re going to have a conversation about it and lessons learned and kind of my aha is what I’m seeing with people right now and prior to, and look forward to it. Thanks Craig for having me.

Craig Fisher (03:58):

I’m glad you’re here and it’s interesting. So we, we had a conversation at the last talent net conference. Michael Goldberg went on a bit of a rant about employers and recruiters ghosting candidates and I think that that problem is exacerbated in this environment. And I think also that the problem’s not getting better even though we’ve been talking about it now for months and months and it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse. And you’ve experienced some of that and you’ve got some good examples that you can share with us.

Diana Meisenhelter (04:38):

The article that I wrote is really around the executive search, so at a director VP level but it really applies to anybody, right? So I have been in recruiting for a long time and it’s always been a passion of mine, the candidate experience. And there are a lot of people that do it really well. A lot of recruiters personal say that do it really well. Companies that do it really well and there are companies and individuals that don’t, and this has been a topic probably close to my heart personally and professionally for over 20 years and I can’t believe we’re still talking about it. It’s really simple. It as do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But even prior to COVID 19 and the 36 million people out of work here’s my experience, especially at the senior levels where I surprised and especially at a director, VP level talent acquisition where I’m going to be hiring search firms and engaging them in search.

Diana Meisenhelter (05:42):

That what I was finding as I would go through interviews with very well known search firms and never hear back, even gotten up to the final candidate and having to ask them whether or not I was a candidate or not after they checked references and trying to find out, you know, total ghosting and, and that’s just not okay. Not only is it not okay, but it’s it’s happening more and more. I had any ideas. I’m a member of an executive networking group and most of the people are no director, VPs, even D suite folks. And the topic always comes up about the experience they have in the interview process. And I’m the token recruiter in the room and we have jokes about that. They always take it out on me. But I’m with them. And the stories I’ve heard are just really sad that you was thinking even at the C suite level, when somebody as a CEO tells someone that’s gonna, you know, they’re going to have them interview with their board cause you’re his guy and then never hear back and send emails.

Diana Meisenhelter (07:02):

And it’s, you know, the job search process is hard. It’s emotionally draining and especially when you get all excited about finally finding the fit, you know, going through and, you know, it takes at least three to six months for anybody at the senior level, probably a year actually to find a job and then finally go through that. And it’s happened across the board at all levels. And I just want to talk about how, how’d that happen? You know, and, and I’ve asked people recruiter, someone like clients when the my folks that I counsel on looking for jobs and I think some of it is because of technology that we think that technology is taking care of followups and in reality I would rather have a thanks but no things email from an ATS and nothing. But if you and my team and people that worked for me in the past, we had a rule, if you had an interview, you got a call and it is only common courtesy you’d want it to and that’s just not happening. And and what, I don’t know what’s going to happen now post, you know, COVID 19, but the fact that we have so many people out of work, I can only assume it’s going to get worse.

Craig Fisher (08:30):

Yeah. I, you would think that employers are stressing candidate experience at this time, right? I mean, we’re supposed to be a cognitive that, you know people’s mental health and wellness and all these other things that we’re, we’re preaching on and on about and writing about and talking about is, you know, one of the most important things that we do anything about. Right? I mean by being supportive and when the job search process gets to the point where recruiters are just saying, I’m just not going to call that person back in a situation like this, I think it’s it’s certainly not a best practice. You know, I’m a member of the CandE Council, right? Yeah. The CandEs are great and some of the research that they’ve done for the last two years, you know, it has all these surveyed results of the top things that job seekers complain about or need in a job search process.

Craig Fisher (09:39):

And half of the top 10 have to do with simple communication. And so it’s the easiest thing in the world to pick up the phone. But I think recruiters and employers should create a journey map and actually go through the process themselves and understand where the high points and the low points are. Generally the lowest point of a candidates journey in any job search process with any corporation is after just after the interview with the manager. And the reason for that is it’s, it’s all uphill until that point. And that’s, you’re really excited about it and you get the interview and then you don’t hear anything because the manager is still interviewing people. And so you get down to this low point because there’s no communication and a simple affirmation that I heard your interview went well or I heard that you had your interview. Anything like that would be great. But I think you’ve been in a situation where you got to that point, references checked and then no call at all.

Diana Meisenhelter (10:47):

Yeah, no call at all. But I was just disappointed in our profession. Yeah. Being ever triggered to, I mean, I’m a recruiter before I’m anything and all the work we do as recruiters to get to that point where we’re excited about a candidate and we forget that the candidate is in the same place, but there may only have a few, probably more than one, but let’s say they just have one, one really good opportunity and are really excited about especially when there’s relo involved and that you have to pack everything up in your family and move. Right. you know, starting to research what that’s gonna look like and then never hearing back. And it’s not about really, you know, we look at recruiting when we talk about metrics and we talk about analytics in an aggregate, like what’s our average time to fill and what’s our source of hire and, and all of the things that we look as organizations.

Diana Meisenhelter (11:46):

But when it comes right down to it, it’s just like the rec. It’s just like that individual recruiter and how they manage the followup and communication with a candidate. So I’m a believer of my recruiting strategy has always been, or most recently with technology especially, is the recruiters should focus on relationships with their hiring managers and their candidates and everything else should be automated. So we’re doing all these Bray AI technology and great ATS systems that that are getting better. I’m hoping they’re getting better, better. We need to remember the basics. And I do think, and I’ve had several calls during this time, and they are much more empathetic. They pick up the phone, they have time on their hands, so they’re not rushed. A lot of the problem is that recruiters have way too much to do, and no senior recruiter can manage professional level jobs, 30 jobs at a time.

Diana Meisenhelter (12:56):

There’s just no way. And even with technology, there’s no way to do that. And I am hoping now that we’ve kind of, I’m hoping that this whole place that we’re out in our profession now, we have an opportunity to realize that we’ve overworked our recruiters and our managers. Let’s be honest, it’s not just recruiters and manager, it’s a hiring manager too. We assume the hiring managers staying close, but they’re not. And even just a call or an email, Hey, I haven’t heard back, we’re still going through the interview process. You’re still a really strong candidate. Means the world to someone looking for a job.

Craig Fisher (13:31):

Yeah, it absolutely does. And I feel like you know, I want to be disappointed in our industry when I hear things like that. Because

Diana Meisenhelter (13:44):

Like us here it, and we’re disappointed because we’ve done so much and talked about it for so long, but it was after another day. If you have the volume of work we have, I get it, but it’s still not okay.

Craig Fisher (13:58):

You know, so I work for an RPO and our bread and butter is good recruitment process. I mean, that’s what RPO stands for, right? Recruitment, process outsourcing. And so we stress so much on those basics. It’s not just a candidate experience, it’s hiring manager experience. It’s you know, customer experience. And the candidate is a big part of that whole thing. We know for a fact that candidates will go straight to Glassdoor and judge us. Right. And other review sites and they will tell their friends and it’s a small world. What do recruiters think is going to happen because there’s every chance in the world that you will be in charge of a talent acquisition team at some point in the near future that that recruiter might want to work for, right? So it’s, it all comes back around, right?

Diana Meisenhelter (14:57):

Right, right. It does. And let’s be honest, this is a small community. We know each other, right? We all know pretty much if we don’t know you said make sure you’ve linked in with me by the way is we all know better and we just need to snap out of it, right? We just need to realize that these are real people, real individuals, and, and do the right thing. And just remember, if you’re overworked and you just don’t even have time to do, get back to the basics, then you need to stand up for yourself too and say, Hey, I called uncle. I, I know, I, you know, we all, we already know that, you know, tipping point, when I say 30, anything over 30 reqs, there’s a flag and that the quality of hire, the quality of the candidate experience goes down. All right, we’ll start there.

Diana Meisenhelter (15:50):

If you have more than 30 reqs I doubt you have that issue right now. But when we all kick back in and go in full force, we will. Yeah. And, and as talent acquisition leaders, we also have, I know I have, we’ve done more fluff and when we had turnover, we didn’t replace individuals because we were saving money. And for lots of reasons and throughout my career, that’s part of our job leading how you do more plus. Right? But it’s time now to think about doing recruiting the right way, using technology and still re remembering that we got into help into recruiting most of us, I hope to help people and to, to make a difference. Let me always talk about helping companies and individuals find opportunities of lifetime is what I do and all the other stuff. Yeah. I can do all the technology. And metrics and you know, all the things that sourcing and also as we talk all the buzzwords, but when it comes right down to it, that’s what we do. So how do we, how do we take our eye off of this? And we still aren’t doing the basics.

Craig Fisher (17:19):

So I have to ask, did you tag the recruiter who goes, did you or the recruiters manager when you posted your article on LinkedIn?

Diana Meisenhelter (17:31):

I did not. I was really respectful. Because I I, I understand, but I know one specific recruiter that I was talking about knows I’m not happy about that, but I’m not going to unlocking to do that. That’s not what I do. Hey, I might need Ben someday too. I love executive surgeon. I’m going to just talking about executive search here. I’m talking about executive recruiters and I’m talking about in house recruiters and external recruiters, right? So it is, I am not going to out anybody and I won’t because there are so many good recruiters out there. I mean, I should talk about the good stuff too. I think about that article I wrote, I also talked about the good stuff. There are really good recruiters that I have a lot of respect for, but when I need another, another recruiter on my, to be honest internally I have, I have lots of opportunities going.

Diana Meisenhelter (18:34):

I will call the recruiters. I know that do it to do the right thing and have a little bit of a servant mentality and executive search. It’s not about the firm, it’s about the executive search consultant. That’s another thing. I follow the consultant, not the firm and I know and we all know the good ones. Then we all know ones that maybe we wouldn’t use. And I encourage everyone to find good ones and use them throughout your career as a talent acquisition leader and also the job seeker because those individuals are subject matter experts and really good at what they do. I just wanted to remember, remind everyone that it’s not that we can do better and I can’t believe we’re still talking about this after all these years at new technologies and resources and training awards, the candied awards are awesome, right?

Diana Meisenhelter (19:28):

Word of mouth word of mouth is, you know, even when you’re looking as you’re looking for a job is the networking is the number one source of hire. That’s how you’re going to find a job. Right? Right. And so it’s the same thing of who do you use and what companies do it right and what recruiters are passionate recruiters that haven’t forgotten why they got into this profession. Right? I mean it’s really that simple. I, I just put some words around it. I appreciate that you enjoyed my work. I’m going to get back into blogging. I haven’t finished part two yet. My neck part two is going to be how many people do you really need to interview a candidate to make a decision? Because that’s the next thing I’m saying is sometimes it’s not a consensus. I know it’s all about culture and what you’ve done. And you know, so forth. But as a leader, you need to make that choice and having a candidate go to eight, call out on their job for eight dentist appointments is not okay too, right? It is hard for candidates and you’re going to have a lot of people to pick from. And I don’t think that this is also a time for companies to reevaluate the selection process.

Craig Fisher (20:53):

You know, it’s funny, I, I go back and forth on this. I, so there’s a lot of research and writing about consensus interviews and that, you know, that’s the only way to get the right hire, get a fair hire or, you know, whatever. I, I don’t believe that at all. I still think a favoritism comes into it with a group and consensus interviews. And I think that there are a lot of inherent problems there. I think it can be done well. But yeah, you do waste a lot of people’s time sometimes in this process for not very good reason.

Diana Meisenhelter (21:34):

Yeah. I’m a big fan of candidate assessment and I’m going to assume because a lot of companies are going away from them because they became a deterrent. I know we, we didn’t, some of my companies that I worked for because he came less of a a tool and more of a, of a block to hiring candidates once they’re there, we could talk about candidate assessments. And we had implemented it because we had too many candidates during the recession and now we didn’t have enough right now with, you know, post COVID, I’m going to guess the candidate assessment and become even more important and because we’re going to have to weed out versus weed in that we have done in the past. That’s another topic that as professionals, we need to talk about. And what assessments are out there and what’s right because not every assessment is right, for every company or every job.

Diana Meisenhelter (22:40):

Right. And I think we’re going to see a increase in candidate assessments. And I think that becomes that technology thing again where we’re not talking and touching and I don’t know, having that communication with a candidate, as much as I’m a big fan of really good interviewer and a really good interview selection process, it’s still comes down to you interviewing me and having a connection and a fit that fits in the company and that role. And that won’t go away. I hope. And I hope it doesn’t become, you know, apply for a job taking assessment and I know their companies, you know who they are and what to name them by name and if you pass the assessment you get hired that that’s not okay. We need to be connected and having more than technology makes us position.

Craig Fisher (23:37):

Yeah, I agree. And if you take the human element out of it, you take empathy away and you take so I’m also a big fan of gut reactions to be real honest. So you can’t, you can’t program that. Right. And if you know what you’re doing, you know the job well enough you know your organization well enough, you can tell when somebody is going to be a great fit. You know it right away, right? If you’re a good interviewer, if you, if you know what you’re doing. A lot of recruiters these days don’t unfortunately know what they’re doing there. There are plenty who do. So there’s still some good to that. But the assessment, I, I agree. We do. Now we make it too easy to apply. And so we have, we don’t have a recruiting problem, right? I mean, we can find people and we can recruit people and we regularly hire people. We’re not fixing anything, right? It’s not broken. What we do have though is a communication problem. There are some that are broken. But it’s, it’s a communication problem, right? It’s not, it’s not, it’s not a source problem.

Diana Meisenhelter (24:44):

As a consultant and helping companies with let’s say improving their internal recruiting process. I have come across companies where it is broken and I’ve come across companies and just little parts and pieces that that could be better. But I think generally we are way beyond the day when I started in recruiting and we use, you know, yellow pages and Rolodex and faxes, those types of things, right. And mean, think about how inefficient that is and newspaper ads and newspaper ads. Oh my goodness. Oh, I forgot the Dallas morning news. Right. Right. Full page. That’s how I got the doubt was a newspaper ad. Yeah.

Craig Fisher (25:31):

I used to spend a lot of time on those. Right?

Diana Meisenhelter (25:34):

Oh, I bet you’d asked. Right. Matrix brand, the employment brands going to become even more important in my opinion. I know we’re not kind of talking about some of the on this call, but my opinion, the employment brand is going to become even more important on how you handled your team members, your employees during this time. And, and if you’ve done a really good, good job of it, you should be using social media. And I think there’s something like a company and I know you work with a lot of those that are sending out those messages and the ones that haven’t done a good job back to a little bit of the surveys like CandEs or, or even I bet. So this going to be a list out there, if not our are already, I haven’t looked about how, what companies are doing it really well and taking care of their employees during this time mean you set up a call individually, let them know that they’d been furloughed or laid off, et cetera or the bad ones. And I have several individuals that I’m coaching right now that got emails that they’re being laid off, right? So there’s another part to kind of reevaluate as job seekers and employers of how we, we need to think about the job search process and finding the right candidates at the right time. Right. That really still matters. But putting some time that we have right now into re-evaluating what’s important.

Craig Fisher (27:14):

That’s right. And that letting people know in person that they’ve been furloughed or let go or whatever is almost the same, just lack of respect that ghosting a candidate is when they’re far into the interview process. Right? It’s the, it’s the it’s the being afraid to pick up the phone and face reality and, and do the human thing and do the respectful thing and give someone an in person answer about that.

Diana Meisenhelter (27:53):

You know, Craig, let’s go back to your comment you said a minute ago around recruiters don’t know how to do it. The do it is very much I really good call. I would say maybe even another topic sometime around how to hire recruiters that have the competency that we need today, right? And old school, no, we need critical thinking. We need change management. We need, we need some, some servant empathy caring for people. So you’re not just there to make the money, right? You’re there, make a difference to the company and to the, to the individual. There are some competencies that we need to upscale and we need to as a profession, make sure we’re hiring those recruiters that fit our culture. We forget sometimes not everybody is a good recruiter. That’s right. Then just because, let’s be honest, in our profession and my whole profession, Hey, they couldn’t do something in the field or they couldn’t do something in another department.

Diana Meisenhelter (29:14):

Let’s just have him go into recruiting or they’re a new grad, let’s put them in recruiting. Right? I think we’ve done a better job as a profession. A lot of companies and leaders have already figured this out, but there’s some out there is and we’ve heard there are passionate self people. That’s right. Right. And that’s what a good recruiter looks like. You need to call it whatever you want. This passionate self person. And again, let’s reevaluate who it, who you have on your team and who you want on your team and do they fit what your expectations are in helping identify internal and external talent and what feedback you get. I mean candidate surveys, hearing from candidates what they think, you know, how a specific experience with was for them is that previously I’ve used that in PA and in coaching and counseling for the recruiting team. I think that that’s really powerful and not used as often as I would like to say.

Craig Fisher (30:24):

Yeah. It’s why I like the CandEs. They give you really good data and you really do understand your process better. But I want to touch on something you said a minute ago. Not everybody is a good recruiter and it’s interesting when someone from another department that says, Hey, I think this person would be good in recruiting. Would you just hire a salesperson based on that? I don’t think you would. Right? I mean, there’s a lot of money involved in making a hire like that. And you should be asking recruiters several things, right? If, if someone’s just referred as, I think they’d be good in recruiting, will you still have to ask them the same things you would ask an experienced recruiter, go through this sourcing exercise with me. I’m a manager and I’ve got a job. Do the intake meeting with me right now.

Craig Fisher (31:07):

Let’s do that. Right. Do a rejection please. I’m not the right candidate. Tell me what happened. Okay, let’s do that. Go through that exercise. And if you can’t do all those things, you’re not on my team. That’s just the way it is. There have to be some and a good recruiter. If you ask them to do the rejection, a good recruiter will say, hi Diana or Craig. It’s Craig and I’m just going to let you know that it’s not a fit this time. I’m sorry I don’t have more information for you, but we, you know, we hope that you’ll stay a fan of the brand and keep in touch with us and that’s it. And they’ll shop and that’s all it really takes, you know? But

Diana Meisenhelter (31:53):

Yeah, but I would like to just say maybe we need to be less concerned about liability and telling the world truth why they didn’t get the job. I know we don’t do it because they don’t want to go into coaching. We don’t want to explain how they didn’t do it. Great interview or you’re on the phone doing, especially internal candidates, right. Then you’re doing coaching,

Craig Fisher (32:17):

Right. Well, a good executive consultant will tell you that stuff. Right. But you don’t get that from an employer. You just don’t. Right. It’s, it’s not,

Diana Meisenhelter (32:26):

But I still, there are companies that do that. Whoa. I’m surprised. So good for you. Right?

Craig Fisher (32:32):

Yeah. And it would be nice. That’d be a breath of fresh air if companies really would do that. You know, when you’re an agency recruiter, you tell people take a shower and shine your shoes and you know, do these basic things and and I’ll get you a job. But you know, at the employer level it just doesn’t happen. So I, I don’t think we’re, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’re close to being that transparent. I wish we were. Alright. Well Diana, this has been fascinating as always.

Diana Meisenhelter (33:02):

Hey Craig, you didn’t say anything about my cowboy shirt.

Craig Fisher (33:06):

Oh yes. Let’s talk about this. You got kind of shirt and it looks fancy.

Diana Meisenhelter (33:12):

It looks fancy. It is fancy. It’s my favorite designer and I got a deal on it because who were the designer? Cowboy shirtless. You’re living in Dallas, Texas.

Craig Fisher (33:22):

That’s right. Super cool. I mean you might be able to pull that off in Santa Fe as well.

Diana Meisenhelter (33:27):

Oh yeah. Probably a couple of places. I could probably do it, but it, it, it’s fun. I just, you know, thought it would be something different. Cause I know on these everybody’s on some type of, you know, a virtual call these days just to take it up a little bit.

Craig Fisher (33:44):

I like it. I like it a lot. So hopefully we can see each other in person soon. I think we’re getting close. And there’s always I’ve really enjoyed this conversation and I think we should do this some more as this job market evolves into a sort of a post COVID thing. And so maybe we’ll pick up after part two is written.

Diana Meisenhelter (34:08):

Yeah. I really appreciate you reaching out to me, Craig. It’s always been great. I’m kindred spirits, so to speak. Right? That’s right. All right, well thank you so much.

Craig Fisher (34:24):

Thank you for listening to inside talent. Learn more about the future of talent today at insidetalent.org where you can sign up for regular updates and you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.